


Eros

by passionate_crimes



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Tragedy, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 04:35:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/974408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/passionate_crimes/pseuds/passionate_crimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They do not speak of love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eros

**“You burn us” –Sappho**

~*~*~*~*~*~

They do not speak of love.

More specifically, they do not speak of if they love each other.

Because, they don’t, right?

_“Just platonic.”_

 

It’s not as if it matters.

John loves him, sure, but only as a friend would love a friend.

He loves women. He loves their curves, their scent. He loves making love to them, hearing their soft moans and sighs as he moves in them.

He would not make love to Sherlock Holmes. Why would he? It would be different, strange and awfully different, for Sherlock does not have the curves that he loves, is much too fast for John’s taste, would feel jarringly different around him.

His nightmares of men dying on the sand quickly fade upon moving in with the detective, and are replaced with strange, sexually fueled dreams, him and Sherlock desperately taking one another in a bizarre, almost fever-like fashion, going until John wakes up, sweaty, aroused, and incredibly uncomfortable.

But it’s normal. It is not strange to have homoerotic dreams, fantasies, that are wonderful and arousing while in them, only to become awkward and strange once the subject has woken up.

 

He does not want to make love to Sherlock, at least when he’s awake, but he does want to know what Sherlock loves. A burning curiosity, that John cannot describe.

It is almost a game, between them.

No, not between _them_. It’s just John. Because Sherlock doesn’t need a game, when he wishes to know something, he simply looks for it, and finds it.

But John must guess. He has to look for clues, try to piece them together, and wonder what they mean.

Does Sherlock Holmes love anyone? Has he ever loved anyone? Has he ever had sex? Has he ever laid on top of a woman (or man, for that matter. _It’s all fine_.) late at night, all guise and poise lost in his desperate thrusts into her (or him), all deductions gone from his lips except for the repeated syllables of his lover’s name, until even that is lost as he climaxes and cries out in his frenzy?

Has he ever caressed anyone? Has he ever held someone in his arms late at night, pressing kisses to their sweaty brow, and cooed sweet promises to them that would be forgotten and broken by morning?

Perhaps John thinks about it too much.

He could ask, he realises. Sherlock would not lie to him. All of John’s wonderings and nagging thoughts could be silenced by a simple, straightforward question.

_“Do you have a girlfriend?”_

At any point he could ask his friend, bring it up politely, nonchalantly, as if it is a casual question about the weather.

“Soo, Sherlock... I was wondering, are you really a virgin?”

It’s really the only way Sherlock will answer him, because the subtle hints and questions John _does_ ask don’t go through.

_“No... Not really my area.”_

 

But it does not really matter, because John does love him, he does, but only as a friend would love a friend.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~

 

And then he’s gone.

With a phone call and two words, the most brilliant and spectacular man John has ever known, the man he was _just_ talking to is gone, flying to the ground with his black coat flowing above him, in a final act of grace and beauty. His eyes stare up to the sky, lifeless and unseeing.

His scarlet blood mixes with the rainwater, and drains down the sewage.

 

_“Goodbye, John.”_

 

It’s then that John falls in love with Sherlock.

Or maybe he was in love with him all along. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care, because it _hurts_ so much.

 

The dreams return, but they’re different. A combination from the darkest time in his life, and the brightest.

They are no longer sexually tense fights, ending with a strangely unfulfilling snog.

Now they’re longing, horrid dreams, in which John is searching, but never finding. They are reminiscent of his army dreams, in that he wakes in a cold sweat, with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

Sherlock is in them, and John longs to tell him, tell him that he loves him, but he doesn’t, never does.

Because even in the dreams, John knows that the man is dead, even if it is only in the back of his mind.

“...You’re dead, aren’t you?”

Sherlock never answers.

Sometimes he tries to tell him. He opens his mouth, staring at that tall, utterly gorgeous man, but he never gets it out.

“Sherlock I lo-”

 

But he recovers. Slowly. Because that’s what he does, as a soldier, as a human being.

Slowly, he stops doing double takes at every tall, dark haired man who walks past him. He stops crying himself to sleep, stops beating himself up for not doing _something_.

 

Within a year, he starts to date again, starts to look at women again. There’s one in particular, that he meets at about the eighteenth-month mark (not that he keeps track).

Her name is Mary, and John loves her.

 

She listens, when he explains his relationship with Sherlock, rubs his back when he says he still misses him a lot, kisses him when tears prickle at the corners of his eyes.

 

He proposes to her, and he would know it had been only five weeks shy of three years that Sherlock was dead, if he looked.

He loves her.

He still loves Sherlock too, but, he doesn’t think that will go away, ever. Just a small part of him, locked away in the corner of his mind, still loves him.

But that’s okay. He survives, it doesn’t hurt anymore.

 

Until two weeks later, when _he_ returns.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~

 

_“John, if I had any idea that you would react in this way...”_

_“_ You absolute sod _!!”_

 

It takes a week for Sherlock’s black eye to heal. It takes even longer for John not to be angry.

Sherlock doesn’t question it, understands it, or thinks he does. He thinks John is angry because of the stunt he’s pulled, dying and coming back, making John mourn for nothing.

Which is part of it. But John gets over that rather quickly, understands, somewhat, why he did it. To save John, to save Greg, to save Mrs. Hudson. Sherlock Holmes, proving that he has a heart, three years late.

 

It’s mostly because John had pushed aside his feelings for Sherlock, and now they’re back, along with the cheeky, smirking detective, and it just _isn’t fair_.

He can't have him, because he's in love with Mary, and is marrying her.

 

They eventually settle back into a routine, although it is a bit different. John lives with Mary now, does not see Sherlock often. But that infuriating man still texts him, sends him details on a crime scene he is heading to, or an interesting client, at any hour, during the day or night, as if it’s an invitation. John always has the choice of saying no, of turning away and continuing about his schedule.

Not that John would ever refuse. He does love Sherlock, no matter how much he’d like to deny it. It hangs in the air between them, both of them knowing that John needs this, and would never turn it down, but neither ever mentioning it, for fear of shattering their fragile relationship, which is only just being mended.

Mary doesn’t mind, however. She’s glad that John is happy, and thinks nothing more of it. She never says anything, only smiles and kisses him goodbye, even when it is five in the morning.

Which makes him feel even worse.

It’s about this time that John notices how _intensely_ Sherlock stares at him. When John talks to someone, be it Greg, a witness, or even a waiter during their after-case-dinners, he can see Sherlock watching him at the corner of his eye, looking as if he wishes to _eat_ him.

He isn’t sure if the detective has always looked at him like this, or if it’s just started now, or if John is imagining the entire thing.

But, whichever way, it’s incredibly distracting for him to try to be a proper doctor at a crime scene when the most gorgeous man he knows is undressing him with his eyes.

He ignores it, no matter how much he wants it, he stays silent and faithful, to Mary, because he still loves her, and it would not be fair to her.

 

He gets married. Sherlock is his best man. Of course he is, he is his best friend.

And John does not think about how beautiful the man looks in a suit.

Or how, for just a moment, after he kisses Mary, there’s a chasm of heartbreak and despair in Sherlock’s eyes.

He could tell him, John thinks. Three years of regretting never telling Sherlock that he loved him, and the man is right here.

He doesn’t. It’s too late, anyhow.

He also still doesn’t ask the questions that burned in his mind so many years before. He could so easily, reach out a hand, ask any of the fiery questions that still occupy almost every moment of being with Sherlock.

“Are you really a virgin?”

“Do you like men?”

“Did you love Irene Adler?”

“...Do you love me?”

 

At one point, Sherlock wraps those strong arms around John from behind, and pulls him into the shadows, where no one can see them

“I could have you,” he says from behind, in a dark, thrilling voice, right in John’s ear. “We wouldn’t have to tell anyone. We could carry on in secret. I don’t mind it.”

His gloved hands are roaming on John, oddly distant and cold, along his chest and down his stomach, the tips of his fingers gliding underneath the waistband of his trousers. The touch is unlike anything John has ever felt before, he’s never been touched by someone who is still wearing _gloves_. It’s odd, and makes him shiver, yet he has to admit, it is still incredibly arousing.

“I could have you here, if you’d like. I could make you scream against the wall, and no one would have to know.” His lips ghost John’s, his breath making the doctor’s hair stand on end.

Or maybe he dreamed the whole thing.

 

Either way, John refuses, and Sherlock never shows any indication that it actually occurred.

He stays faithful to Mary, because it wouldn’t be fair to her, and he married her.

 

But oh, how those nightly runs make John smile, and how _beautiful_ Sherlock looks with the wind in his hair, and that sparkle in his eye.

And on those nights, they can still pretend. They can just pretend that it’s all the same, and that it’s all just a game, between them.

They dance about each other, as if they still have all the time in the world, just to see how long they can go without ever bringing up the subject of love, or sex, or if they ever had a chance in hell together.

Or perhaps it’s just John.

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'd or Brit-picked, any critiques are welcome (be nice though :P)


End file.
